Listing the best posts offered at Campaign Mastery in the second third of 2015.

What do you do when you discover that the table of data that was to be the centerpiece of a post is too wide to display in the space available? Well, you have two options – either make it available as a download, or restructure it. The first isn’t a lot of work, the second requires a huge effort. So nine times out of ten, you’d pick the ‘download’ option.

But for the table that’s the centerpiece of the next installment of Trade In Fantasy, that’s not an option, because the idea is for the whole thing to aggregate into a publishable e-book at the end.

The only option is to take the harder road. It was already dicey whether or not it would be ready to post by deadline (tonight) – this simply sealed the deal. But that’s why you’re looking at another filler post.

But it’s actually fairly appropriate that this post is looking back and reflecting. A year ago this week, I signed the lease and moved into my current address – hasn’t time flown?

Long-time readers will remember the stress and angst that this climaxed – it’s not right to suggest that it was all over (it wasn’t), but this was when things started to improve, one year ago.

And, for the most part, it’s been steady progress for that year. There have been a few setbacks, but for the most part things have been steadily improving – and, where a setback has demanded more assertive action, it’s either in progress or being organized.

It may not have been a great year (those only come along every now and then). but it’s been a year of progress toward a future great year, and that has its own satisfactions.

This is also the earliest possible theoretical date for the completion of the Trade In Fantasy series – a schedule that was never considered realistic, I have to admit, though I had hoped to be deeper into it than I am. But that’s the price of not compromising (any more than I have to) the quality of the work. At the end of the day, i want this to be a resource that can be referenced again and again, and that takes either a big writing team (there’s just me) or taking the time.

Most GMs will never need the 22-step process that I just wrote up for defining the characteristics of rafts, and when they do, one of the off-the-shelf solutions included with the process will be quite good enough for them nine times out of ten – but to tweak the designs to allow for non-human races, it was necessary to describe it in full, so that’s what I’ve done – something to look forward to when Trade In Fantasy Chapter 4 part 3 is finally ready!

But, first —

Something else that’s worth mentioning is that when I updated Campaign Mastery to https – yes, it is secure aside from two social media links that continually raise unwarranted red flags for visitors – a lot of links got zapped. The automated process was supposed to convert them all, automatically – but it didn’t. A number of illustrations also got zapped at the same time – the images are still there, but the link to them that displays them in the post got removed.

As I discover these, I’ve been doing my best to reconnect / repair the damage. Of course, this extra effort contributes to the amount of work involved in doing one of these posts – another reason why I’ve broken 2015 into three parts.

Of course, to discover these missing links, I have to actually re-read each of the posts from back then, which also takes time. I skim when I can, but usually have to be more thorough. I’d have to at least skim the articles anyway, to rate them. Just a quick glimpse behind the scenes for readers!

The Very Best Of 2015 Pt 2: May-August

The 10/10 list

• The Further Thoughts On Pacing series – I follow up the 2014 Emotional Pacing in RPGs 2-part series with a 4-parter looking at pauses and breaks of all sorts and the impact they have. Disney are famous for creating and using anticipation to enhance their attractions; this covers the RPG equivalent.
• The Plunging Into Game Physics series – looks in depth at what a Game Physics is, why it’s important, how to create one, and how to use it for various purposes – as a plot generator, for example.
• A Vague Beginning – An old article that I had underfoot about the basic conceptualization of a new campaign. Not at all superfluous despite the similarity in subject matter to the New Beginnings series because this puts the conceptual groundwork together in a single space (instead of breaking it up into a large series), providing an overview that leads to concrete and directly useful results.
• A Helping Handout – Phil Veccione of Gnome Stew wrote an article about making handouts more valuable to players so that they looked them over for more than a 3-second glance. Hungry of Ravenous Roleplaying reviewed and linked to that post. I saw that review and was led to the article – and found that Phil had only covered 4 of the 13 applications for Handouts that I observed. So this expands on that original source to cover the field, especially the other 9 purposes.
• The Cinematic Combat series – What is a cinematic combat style and how do you achieve it? An article that I resisted doing until I could find a way to abstract my methods into something more universally applicable. Part 1 deals with attacks and the basic whys and wherefores, part 2 with Damage, and part 3 with the absence of traditional mechanics. Game system purists should not read the series, it’s full of house rules and the principles to be enshrined in house rules, which will only upset them.
• Traditional Interpretations and Rituals Of Culture – explores the Gaming relevance of a thought of mine: ‘Traditions become empty when the meaning behind them is forgotten. We don’t teach enough relevance to create reverence’. How to generate and utilize traditions and customs within a campaign setting.
• The Care and Feeding Of Vehicles In RPGs 1: A 2-part guest article – part 1 deals with acquiring and designing vehicles for various purposes within an RPG.
• The Care and Feeding Of Vehicles In RPGs 2: A 2-part guest article – part 2 covers the in-game use and abuse of vehicles in RPGs.

The 9/10 List

• Taking advantage of the sensory heirarchy – The only reason this isn’t 10/10 is because some of the links have undoubtedly gone south over the last 10 years. The relative importance of the senses and how each can be manipulated by the GM, with a focus on Oratory / Public Speaking.
• Overprotective Tendencies: Handling Player Risk Aversion – As players grow attached to their characters, they can start playing it safe and over-planning. This offers six solutions to the problem – some of which may be even worse than the original issue – but this post is more about putting the problem on a GM’s radar than any set solution.
• Imperfect Imbalance – Personal Injury Law in RPGs – This post plugs a gap in my coverage of creating fundamental campaign concepts and translating them into game impact at the level of mundane day-to-day life by looking at the question through, of all things, personal injury law.
• A target of inefficiency: from Dystopian trends to Utopia – Why is aging infrastructure a problem, how does this join with other similar trends to push toward a dystopian future, and how can a utopian alternative emerge from these circumstances? I’m really proud of both the insight and foresight of this article – for example, “Concentration of wealth has left media control in a relatively small number of hands. While the degree of influence of the modern media barons is a hotly-disputed subject, the potential remains for Kingmakers to control our economic destiny.” But I couldn’t rate this as a 10/10 – it’s only applicable to modern / futuristic campaigns, and takes too long to get to the RPG-relevance.
  

  Nevertheless, it seems so prescient regarding the situations we face right now that I have to call attention to it. While my utopian solution may not work (it’s good enough for an RPG, I make no claims or promises beyond that), the mere fact that any sort of solution can be plausibly discussed is a cause for optimism – one that’s sorely needed right now.

• The Basics For Beginners (and the over-experienced) series – 12 parts published so far, with three more still to be done, this series focuses on advice for beginning GMs, and those who need to get back to basics. While some parts were easier to write than I expected, most were a lot harder because I really did aim to provide practical advice for first-time GMs (most of Campaign Mastery focuses on the experienced GM and helping them advance to the next level; it’s not a blueprint for doing so, more a series of paths for individual development – what will work best for one will not be the best focus for another). For the record, the three remaining sections are “Surprises”, “Mistakes”, and “Laughs”.

The Honorable Mentions: The 8/10 list

• Fogs, Clouds and Confusion: A Battlemap technique – How to shroud a battlemap in mist, rain, snow, fog, etc. One comment described the technique as overkill, but that’s for the individual GM to decide – and the decision can change with the circumstances. A filler post, but still worthwhile.
• Ask The GMs: On Big Dungeons – Another GM asks for help in making a big Dungeon something manageable in terms of the playing experience. The answer looks at subdividing the dungeon into smaller independant sequences and understanding why the thing is so big in the first place.
• The Power Of The Question-mark in RPG Plotting – A short filler article discussing how to use question marks to implant variable content within an adventure. Good stuff but fairly limited in scope.
• Tales from the front line: The Initiative Conflict – I break down the initiative system from D&D 3.x and explain my preferred interpretation, analyze why one of my players hated it, and describe the way that I accommodated his interpretation without letting it wreck the campaign(s). The first in a (very) occasional series analyzing conflicting points of view at the gaming table from the perspective of actual “battlefield” experience.

Still more to come!